An effort to consolidate various fraud related news from newspapers/websites across the world. News on Phishing, News on Skimming, News on Hacking, , News on Banking Frauds, News on Identity theft, Fraud news

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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Cameras disguised as speakers on ATMs were used to rip off 800 victims at a
cost of $112,478 to JPMorgan Chase, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The scheme was described as part of the sentencing of Aleksandar Nikolov
and Toscho Ilyeff, two
Bulgarians who pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge William P.
Dimitrouleas in South Florida. The charges were access device fraud and
aggravated identity theft. The defendants consented to forfeiture of computers
and $12,673 in cash.

According to documents filed with the court and statements made during the
plea hearing, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) employees discovered that skimming
devices on the bank's ATMs were used to capture customers’ account numbers as
they inserted their debit cards.

Nikolov and Ilyeff installed a wireless camera disguised as a speaker to
record customers typing their PIN numbers and transmitted the footage to a
cellphone, a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The defendants
then re-encoded this information onto Visa (NYSE: V) gift or debit cards and
store gift cards, which were used to withdraw cash from the customers’ accounts
at ATMs throughout South Florida.

The method seems to be another twist on swiping ATM PINs. Another common
method involves putting a phony card reader on an ATM.

Sentencing for the duo has been scheduled for Aug. 31. They face a up to 10
years in prison on the access device fraud count, and a mandatory two-year
sentence on the aggravated identity theft count, consecutive to the sentence
imposed on the access device fraud.